The Beijing municipal government has launched a pilot project to transform street lamps into charging poles for electric cars, Xinhua reported on Monday.

Eighty-eight high-pressure sodium lamps on a road in Beijing's Changping district have been converted into energy-saving LED lamps. Eight charging poles have been installed and put into trial operation using the energy saved from the new LED lamps, according to the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission.

The charging poles can be used both during the day and night, it said.

The municipality plans to build 10,000 public charging poles for electric cars by 2017, the municipal government said in June 2014.

The charging poles will be installed at airports and train stations, public parking lots, malls and supermarket parking lots, highway service areas, electric-car dealers and gas stations.

The Chinese government has been encouraging consumers to buy electric vehicles as a solution to the country's pollution problems. But the plan has been hindered by bottlenecks in the charging infrastructure.

A charging system on the Beijing-Shanghai expressway will soon become operational. Over the weekend, five electric cars started a 1,262 kilometer test drive from Shanghai to Beijing, with charging stations available every 50 kilometer in each direction.